Homeless: Poverty and Place in Urban America

2: A New Deal for the Homeless

C H A P T E R 2 A NEW DEAL FOR THE HOMELESS IN an April 1932 campaign speech, Democratic presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt announced his commitment to projects “that build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.” Roosevelt called for reform of agricultural and tariff policy and of mortgage lending practices in an effort to stabilize the American economy. Once in office, the Roosevelt administration delivered on these promises, enacting a wave of policies and programs designed to ease the suffering of the poor while regulating the economic and political realms. Identifying the migrant homeless as another area of risk, the administration set out to assist them.1 In the tumultuous environment of the Depression, the Roosevelt administration enjoyed unprecedented latitude in forging programs with ambitious agendas. Even in this climate, though, efforts to aid the homeless were constrained by political realities. As the expansion of the scope of the federal government brought national administrators into operations carried out at the state and local levels, power struggles erupted. More significantly, Americans questioned the nature of the assistance that should be offered to the homeless . Their definition of appropriate aid was grounded in their understanding of the causes and demographics of homelessness. During the depths of the Depression, which propelled middle- and working-class Americans into poverty , the nation was willing to extend unprecedented generosity. Such programs did not last, however, unable to withstand the rhetorical and political evolution of the New Deal. A New Deal for the Homeless 61 The New Deal on Skid Row As the Depression deepened, America’s cities were unable to provide assistance to the swelling ranks of the homeless population. During the winter of 1931–32, New York’s Central Registration Bureau referred 45,000 men to the muni.By the time of Roosevelt’s 1932 election, the muni was providing nearly 80 percent more nights of lodging than it had the previous year. Homeless women, especially, applied for relief in record numbers, at a rate more than double that of 1931. White-collar workers also appeared more often in assistance lines, changing the face of homelessness from a migrant worker to one’s former middle-class neighbor. Entire families continued to hit the road in desperation. This grim situation was replicated nationwide; over thirteen million Americans were unemployed, and some estimated the total number of transients at two million.2 During the initial stages of the Depression, President Hoover had maintained faith in voluntarism and the self-regulatory ability of the private sector. As the crisis worsened, though, even the Hoover administration began to embrace expanded government intervention into the economy. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation initially lent funds to banks and railroads, then expanded its mission to include lending money to state relief programs for public works projects. When state governors, including Pennsylvania’s Gifford Pinchot, complained of the difficulty in receiving funding, social work expert and economist Edith Abbott asked, “Why are state and national government fighting over the responsibility levels while poor people are in need of relief? How much is tradition, how much ‘principle’?”Impatient in the face of stark destitution and rising homelessness, many called for decisive action.3 Offering direct relief to the poor struck many as a disastrous plan. During the late 1931 and early 1932 U.S. Senate hearings leading to the passage of the Emergency Relief Administration statute, representatives of Hoover’s President’s Organization on Unemployment Relief and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposed the relief bills, calling them a “dole.” Linton Swift, executive director of the Family Welfare Association of America, refuted their claim: “I wish to make clear my conviction as a social worker that proposals for Federal aid have no relation to the establishment de novo of a dole. A dole is a dole, whether it is given by an individual, a private charitable agency, a city, a state, or the Federal government. It is a dole whether it is given in cash or in kind.” But direct federal relief to the poor in particular continued to be singled out and branded a dole long after the hearings.4 Looking at the era’s homeless and other unemployed, officials and 62 Chapter 2 middle-class observers felt a mixture of empathy and fear. Many were disturbed...